It... It would appear that there are quite a number of drabbles that I've forgotten to post here. More than I realized. It may take a while to get through them all.

Disclaimer: I do not own Fairy Tail.


Title: Bruises

Pairing: Cobra x Natsu

Requester: partyshart

Prompt: bruises


It was by chance that Natsu ran into Cobra soon after he began his training. Or maybe it wasn't such a coincidence, he decided later, given Cobra's hearing abilities. But at the time, he couldn't help but think it happy happenstance to see his fellow dragon slayer.

They'd talked and laughed for quite a while. Happy still wasn't old enough to have all the jokes explained to him, Natsu decided, so in retaliation Happy tried to play tricks on Cobra instead. Which he took in good turn. He seemed a very different person from the man Natsu had fought so long ago, and from the person that had reappeared with the Neo Oracion Seis.

In all their conversation, Cobra had not uttered a single word about the undertow of grief lurking within Natsu's heart. For which Natsu was immensely grateful. He wasn't ready to discuss it yet, and the courtesy extended by Cobra was… warming.

Natsu, for his part, did not breathe a word about all of the healing bruises that peppered Cobra's arms and collarbone, nor the fading black eye and new scar along the underside of his jaw.

But now Natsu wondered if, maybe, Cobra had wanted him to ask, after all.